


Stop Being Dead

by allthosepaperpeople



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: M/M, Post-Reichenbach, Sherlock Minibang
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-30
Updated: 2013-12-30
Packaged: 2018-01-06 18:02:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,258
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1109910
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/allthosepaperpeople/pseuds/allthosepaperpeople
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John is not living in 221b anymore. But he still checks on Mrs Hudson every Friday, just to make sure that England won´t fall just yet.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stop Being Dead

**Author's Note:**

> Okay guys, here we go. The topic is overused, in a few days we will know what happens, but I had fun writing this. Shoot me. There will be a second chapter soon - more of an epilogue, really.  
> Leave a comment, that´d be nice!
> 
> Also, there is art that goes with this fic! Check the end notes for a link.

John is not living in 221b anymore. But he still checks on Mrs Hudson every Friday, just to make sure that England won´t fall just yet. He gets his groceries on fridays, too, at the Tesco just around the corner. It would certainly be easier to get them at a shop closer to his apartement, but he doesn´t. The limb is as bad as it was the day he returned to London - if not worse. His therapist either doesn´t notice or she deliberately doesn´t comment on it. Sometimes he thinks he should find somebody else, but for some reason it seems to be so much effort. Also, a new one would most certainly ask him questions he doesn´t want to think about. Sometimes he finds himself sitting in a park, watching people, thinking about the ordinary lives they lead, about how the man in the brown coat is obviously unhappy with his wife and about how the wife tries hard to ignore that, and about how the homeless woman over there might have recieved money for an important tip, a long time ago. But John can´t allow himself to think about that, so whenever he catches himself observing, he goes home.

He doesn´t drink. John Watson is not the type of man to bury his sorrow in alcohol. A sorrow that he denies on the rare occasions that Mrs Hudson or Lestrade ask whether he misses Sherlock.  
"Life certainly is a bit easier", he says, taking a sip of his beer and smiling at the Inspector. Lestrade doesn´t buy it, but he doesn´t push John either. "It is allright", he tells Mrs Hudson when she starts crying and gives her a hug.  
Luckily, those situations don´t arise often. He only sees Lestrade every other month, and Mrs Hudson usually just tells  him about the gossip of Baker Street. Mycroft doesn´t show up at all. Nobody at the clinic even makes the connection. Life isn´t too bad for John Watson, the Batchelor.  
Except it´s all a big lie. It doesn´t catch up with him often, because John is a good liar, and he has had 2 years time now to create the perfect lie. But there are nights where he dreams of falling. And when he awakes, he feels like screaming.  
But John Watson wouldn´t scream at three in the morning. It would be rude to wake the neighbours. So instead, he takes a walk. He walks around London, as if he is still dreaming, trying to find the exit of a dream that won´t end.  
In a moment of self awareness, he once asks himself if it wouldn´t be better to confront his feelings. To talk to his therapist. To leave London. To admit that he isn´t allright.  
But he can´t.  
So he takes walks.  
***  
Christmas draws nearer. The dreams don´t go away. One night in december,  John gets out of bed, puts his coat on and steps out on Londons street. It´s cold, and it rains, and John just lets his feet and his mind wander.  
He notices the figure at the end of the street immediately. It´s a man, in a long black coat, the collar turned up. He is standing half in the shadows, but John thinks he can see untidy, black hair.  
So he draws closer and closer. When he is just some feet away, the man puts a cigarette between his lips and pulls a lighter out of his pocket.  
The lighter clicks. The flame illuminates features. A nose, too long, too sharp. Bushy eyebrows.  
And John feels himself crumble. He turns around and doesn´t look back.  
***  
It´s not the first time this has happened.  
It´s not the last time, either.  
***  
The friday after that John is picking out cheese. As food has a habit of staying uneaten in his fridge, inevitaby going bad, he usually doesn´t care what he buys. But his sister is coming to town, and Harry really likes cheese, so John tries his best.  
He doesn´t know why he turns around. But as he does, he sees a black coat rushing past at the end of the aisle, just barely, out of the corner of his eyes. And he could swear, he hears Sherlocks voice.  
So John forgets about his limb for a moment, the cane clattering to the ground as he starts running after the coat.  
But when he gets to the end of the aisle, there is nobody. In fact, he can´t see anybody with a black coat around at all. And maybe the voice was just the noise in the supermarket.  
Maybe you are going insane.  
John ignores that. A woman hands him his cane and asks, whether he is okay. She is very beautiful and obvoiusly trying to start a conversation. John takes the cane, thanks her and assures her that he is fine. Then he leaves without buying anything.  
***  
Harry comes. Harry stays. Harry leaves. It is nice having her around, and John is glad that they are reaching out to each other. There isn´t more to say about it.  
John takes a cab back from the Heathrow. It´s raining, and he really doesn´t want to walk. They are standing at a red light when he sees him.  
The man is walking like Sherlock. Swiftly moving through the croud, pushing people out of the way, the coat blowing in the wind, the collar turned up and John could swear that it´s him, so he throws the cabbie some money on the seat and gets out.  
He runs after the man, but he is too slow. He ends up standing on a bridge, in the pouring rain, and he curses Sherlock Holmes, for still being so present that the mere idea of him walking by can make John Watson, a grown, independant, fairly intelligent man, jump out of a cab in the pouring rain halfway on the way home.  
And all that for a dead man.  
***  
Christmas is a busy time at the clinic. It´s cold, it´s wet, everybody is stressed, so a lot of people get sick. It´s friday and John barely catches a breath in between patients.  
Around one o´clock in the afternoon, Helen the nurse informs him that he can take fifteen minutes to eat something.  
John isn´t hungry, but he really needs fresh air. He gets up and opens the window, watching people walk by in a hurry. He likes his office, because it´s on the second floor. He likes being close to the streets.  
A quick escape.  
John has gotten very good at ignoring thoughts like that, thoughts that link him to a past life that he can´t afford to think about for the sake of his sanity.  
Suddenly, everything stops moving. On the other side of the street stands a man.  
In a black, long coat.  
And John can see his face.  
It´s him he isn´t dead I knew it he´s back he´s there it´s over am I going insane no no he´s there I can see him i am not hallucinating  
John is out the door before he even realizes. He bumps into a nurse but doesn´t even apologize. He runs down the stairs. He gets out of the clinic. He crosses the street, almost gets hit by a car.  
No Sherlock anywhere.  
***  
That night, John can´t sleep. Obviously, he is going insane.  
Maybe I should just end it now.  
John has gotten good at ignoring that thought, too. So he gets up, once again, and makes tea. He sits in the tiny living room and thinks about a fire in a far bigger room, a violin playing...  
He gets up. Tonight is really bad for some reason, and John can´t take sitting here like this. It´s 5:14 when he steps out on the street. He turns around and locks the door, and that is when he hears the voice.  
"Hello John".  
***  
 John turns around. Slowly, just in case...  
And there he is.  
Sherlock Holmes.  
Skinnier than ever, so skinny that for a moment, John wonders if he actually is dead and has come back as a skeleton. The coat is still long and black, the collar turned up. The hair is longer, but not by much. There is a smile on the detectives face and John finds himself taking a step forward, to touch, to be sure that this is not a hallucination.  
The coat feels real. The smile grows bigger. And John punches as hard as he can.  
There are two years of chasing after every tall man in a black coat in the punch. Two years of nightmares. Two years of people tiptoeing around him. Two years of pointless therapy. Two years of a numb feeling in his chest. Two years of anger and frustration. Two empty years.  
It has been a long time since John punched anyone. But John was a soldier. John is good at punching.  
Sherlock doesn´t expect it. It knocks him of his feet, and he falls on his back like a little kid. And just like a little kid, he looks at John with an expression between confusion, disbelief and offended anger.  
John doesn´t know what to do with himself anymore. A part of him wants to charge at the man, wants to make him hurt the way John was hurting. Another part wants to know why. How. And a tiny part of him reminds him of the feelings he has been ignoring for far too long. Tells him what he really wants to do. But for the most part, John is very angry.  
"I´m sorry, John", Sherlock says, and that makes it even worse.  
"No." John says. Sherlock slowly gets up and gives him a confused look. "You don´t get to do that".  
"Do what?" The detective raises an eyebrow. Smug bastard. "Apologize? I don´t..."  
"You can´t come back after two years and just say sorry as if you´ve broken one of my teacups", John interupts.  
Sherlock looks at the ground. "This was a mistake", he says. "I´m sorry, John."  
And just like that, he turns around and starts to walk away.  
John is not going to let him do that.  
A moment later, two grown men are wresteling in the muddy snow of londons streets at five in the morning.  
"You..absolute..asshole", John growls, trying to get Sherlock of his chest.  
And just like that, Sherlock stops struggeling. And stares at John with an expression that the doctor doesn´t understand.  
"What?"  
"Nothing", the detective replies. "Nothing." He stands up and reaches his hand out to John.  
John doesn´t take it. He stands up on his own and looks at Sherlock. He has snow in his hair. His eye is starting to swell. His coat hangs crooked. He is shivering. He looks absolutely ridiculous.  
It starts as a giggle. John tries to surpress it, because, hell, he is so angry  with Sherlock, but when the other man starts laughing as well, he feels a little bit better.  
***  
John dosn´t really know how they ended up in 221b. He knows that the walk was quiet and that he is starting to be angry again. But when Sherlock opens the door and there is a fire and the skull and experiments on the table, John feels like coming home.  
Until he remembers how the flat looked last year when he came back once in a desperate attempt to find some comfort. Cold, empty. Boxes instead of chairs. And in a terrible moment John realizes that Sherlock must have spend quiet some time here already. Without coming to see him.  
"How long have you been back?", he asks casually, as if it isn´t a big deal. Sherlock puts the kettle on and busies himself with the fire.  
"Sherlock. Answer me."  
The look he recieves reminds John of Harry on the rare occasions that they talk about her drinking. It´s fear of rejection, fear of disapointing him, too much fear to tell a comforting lie.  
"Two weeks." Sherlocks voice is small, like he knows that John won´t like that answer. Of course he knows.  
John makes tea. They sit down, Sherlock in one chair, John in the other.  
"Why?"  
The question seems simple, but John already knows that it really isn´t.    
"They had snipers on you." The detective takes a sip of tea. "And on Mrs Hudson."  
John shakes his head. "No. That is not acceptable."  
Sherlock frowns. "What? Snipers on you is not an acceptable reason to..."  
"Disapear for two years and not say a word about it?", John interupts. "No, it´s not. "  
Sherlock stares into the fire. Neither of them says anything for a while.  
"Do you think it was easy for me?", Sherlock asks, his head bend away from John.  
"Oh yeah, Sherlock, tell me about how you struggled with the fact that your whole life broke apart, tell me! Tell me about how you doubted your own senses because you kept seeing..." John stops. He can´t let Sherlock know about any of it. He probably already knows, and besides, if he waited two weeks before coming to see him, Sherlock obviously doesn´t care about John half as much as he would like him to. No need to give him more amunition to shoot him down.  
Sherlock just keeps staring into the fire. When he start to speak, he sounds strange, as if he is thinking about something else.  
"I wanted to come back right after taking care of the snipers. It seemed very easy. I thought it would take a month, maybe two. Then I would come back. "  
He stands up and goes to the window. "But they caught me. It took Mycroft a year to get me out. Another six months to end it. And then one of his spies told Mycroft that you all had moved on-" His voice is calm and deep as it always was, but John can see Sherlocks hands grip the windowframe. Too tight.  
"I-", Sherlock turns around. "John, I was scared. I still am." He walks back to his chair and sits down like a child that feels cold, arms around knees. "Making you believe I was dead, I am sorry, but I couldn´t risk it. Nobody knew but Mycroft and Molly."  
"Molly." Of course. So it was Molly then. Molly who had faked sheets, and who persuaded him not to come see Sherlock in the morgue. Molly. Sherlock trusts Molly more than he trusts John.  
Appearently, Sherlock can read that thought on his face because he makes an impatient noise.  
"Don´t be ridiculous, John. It had nothing to do with trust. Everybody knows that you and I were..." He shakes his head slowly, as if he is tired. And again, John feels bad for Sherlock. He doesn´t look healthy at all.  
"Were what?", he asks. He wants to know how Sherlock labels it. Friends? Roommates? Partners in crime?  
Sherlock just ignores him. "Molly wasn´t a target from the beginning on. She was in the perfect position to help me cover it up, and she wanted to help."  
"I wanted to help", it slips from Johns lips before he can help it. Sherlock closes his eyes and turns his head again.  
"I am sorry, John."  
The sentence hangs in the room for a bit. They both know that it isn´t that simple.  
For the next twenty minutes no one says a word. Sherlock stares into the fire and throws glances at John, whenever he thinks the doctor can´t see. John watches him. And tries to figure out what he should do.  
He notices the way Sherlock moves his fingers from time to time, as if they are stiff. He notices a scar under his ear that wasn´t there two years ago. He notices that Sherlock doesn´t lean back, how he seems ready to jump up. He notices hunched shoulders and stolen glances, waiting for the decision that the detective seems to await.  
John also notices how he himself feels more relaxed than he has in a very long time. How this feels right, sitting here in front of the fire. He knows that whatever happens next, it won´t be the same as it was before Sherlocks death. But he also knows that he can´t send him out of his life. He knows that he needs this. That he wants to come back to 221b, that he wants to put up with Sherlock and build his life around cases again. He hasn´t thought about it for a long time, but he knows that this is what he needs.  
The clock strikes 7:30, Sherlock can barely keep his eyes open, and John needs to sleep about this whole thing. He needs to decide how fast he wants to take things, how far he is willing to forgive Sherlock. So he stands up and says: "I am going home, to get some sleep." Sherlock nods hesitantly and then says: "You know... Your bedroom..."  
"Did you really think I would just move in like that?", John asks, and he feels the anger returning.  
Sherlock stands up, too, and shakes his head. "I didn´t, but Mrs Hudson..."  
And because John is very tired and it´s raining and it´s 7:30 in the morning and mostly because he just really doesn´t want to go back into his own apartement, he watches Sherlock disappear into his own bedroom and takes the familiar steps up to his old room. Mrs Hudson even put flowers up.  
John falls into the bed and is gone within seconds.  
***  
He dreams of running, and when he turns his head, there is Sherlock, running with him. But something isn´t right. There are cracks in Sherlocks head, and the detective keeps straining away from John, and no matter how hard he tries, he can´t catch up. Suddenly he stands in the middle of a field, and almost trips over Sherlock, on the ground, after the fall, and John wakes up and stiffles a scream with his hand.  
It takes him a moment to realize he isn´t in his apartement and that Sherlock isn´t dead and that thought relaxes him a little.  
It´s only nine o´clock. But John doesn´t want to sleep anymore, afraid of what else he might dream of. So he gets up and taps down the stairs as quietly as he can. Sherlocks door isn´t completely closed, it just leans on the frame. For a moment John wants to burst in to make sure he is breathing, still there, not just a hallucination. But he doesn´t.  
Instead he walks to the door, without making a sound, and sinks to the floor, back to the wall, right next to the door crack.

He can hear Sherlock breathing.

Things won´t just fall into place tomorrow, or the day after, or the day after that, but for now, John doesn´t care. All he cares about is that he is back, back in 221b with an infuriating detective whom he will have to get to know again. And that´s all right.

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Here we go!
> 
> The art can be found at  
> http://sassysherlockreturns.tumblr.com/post/71648808730/something-i-did-for-the-sherlock-minibang-with-the
> 
> Working with Victoria was amazing and you should all go check out her blog at sassysherlockreturns.tumblr.com because she is awesome and her art is just wow.


End file.
